Ephemeral Solitude
by xXHanamizukiXx
Summary: He's always alone. He doesn't know anything, and yet his heart and the dark corners of his mind echo a soundless melody of nostalgia, a few broken notes of past days that he doesn't remember. And then, that pink/red star explodes in a blaze of colors, lighting up his monochrome life from the minute she steps into his white shell.
1. Chapter 1

He doesn't remember anything. In his floating white and black shell, he doesn't remember how he got here. He doesn't know why there's a table for two, he doesn't know why he's always searching, forever roaming that beautiful void of color.

He hates it and loves it at the same time. Those vivid nebulas, shimmering galaxies, brilliant stars-they are close enough to touch, but at the same time he knows for certain he will die if he steps out of his safe, monochrome world.

So at a distance, he falls in love with the luminous space that stretches for miles and miles in front of his warped, stunning eyes, with his pale hands pressed against the cold glass.

It is a terrible fate, really, to be locked away from something that is unattainable and still seeing it every day, every night, every hour and minute of his timeless life.

With naive fingers, the aimless melodies pour forth from the piano and sprint off into the distance, odes of desire, regret, and sorrow, such an aching sorrow. At times, he wonders if an invisible hand wrenched his heart out.

He's not too sure how he knows such things.

_Heart._

_Love._

_Hate._

_Music._

There's a lingering, wistful feeling in his mind that somehow, he lost something precious.  
The true tragedy is the fact that he doesn't even know what he lost. Or he doesn't remember, and he curses himself for being ten thousand types of an idiot to forget.

_How could he?_

He's not sure anymore whether time is relevant, out here in the unknown. The great white ship sails along silently in a sea of colorful lights, always alone, always wishing, hoping...

It isn't until she arrives that everything begins to change.

The sudden appearance of this strange, vibrant creature startles him so much that he merely beeps and stumbles backwards, terrified of the gleaming knife in her hands. Yet at the same time, a voice hisses in his ear.

_We deserve it. Anything she does to us- we deserve. We are terrible._

He can only stare in numb horror as she walks closer, her brown eyes fixed intently on him. It is a strange, alien color; the color of a dwarf star...his own colorless eyes snap shut, waiting for the vibrant crimson (or perhaps he was also gray on the inside; he didn't know) to splash on the immaculate floor-

But instead, he flings his eyes open in shock and surprise as the strange creature drops her knife and rushes to embrace him, her frail arms wrapped around his slim waist.

And somehow, his face feels odd...like there's something missing, something that should have been moving, _curving_ at that moment.

There's something weird with his heart as well; it jumped a bit, and now it's beating faster...

He doesn't really know what emotions are, but from the few, limited words in his mind, he somehow makes the connection between _sadness, happiness, nostalgia._

So he pulls her closer, this strange, brightly colored alien. He _likes?_ the warmth, her faint, _sweet?_-like scent, and wonders at the strange sensation that's tightening the skin on his face.

It was the same feeling he felt when he looked out that wide, wide window and watched the blazing comets streak by, against an otherworldly storm of dying stars and untouchable planets.

Beneath his drab clothing, his watery skin, he is dimly aware that something is moving and beating, something that is now_colorful._


	2. Chapter 2

This creature fascinates him. Everything about her is colorful: even her skin is a delicate shade of peach, unlike his own paper-white. Her brown eyes and hair have a solid warmth, and her small hands are exquisite; gently formed, they are lovely.

She tells him, in one incomprehensible word, what her name is.  
_Madotsuki._  
He's not too sure what that meant in her language, but come to think of it, his own name doesn't have much meaning either.  
_Masada._

At times, the language barrier irritates him. It is like being trapped behind the window again; so close, yet never capable of truly reaching that distant and beautiful place.

But if there's one thing they both know, it is music. Even then, he can see the differences. The music she plays is rich, warm- _happy._Despite her mistakes, the notes resound with a delicate message of things that make his heart quiver.

He often finds himself taking her hands and teaching her something; perhaps a new chord- and he marvels at how nostalgic it seems, as if he knew her a long, long time ago and did the exact same thing.

At night, the two of them sit on the floor and stare out the window. He often finds himself looking at her instead.

The emotions on her face are a puzzle; was she homesick? Did she have someone she wanted to go back to?

Silently, he contemplates these things as he turns back to the iridescent space, just outside of that window.

If she left, he would be alone again. Would he feel..._sad?_

As if nothing had changed inside it, the ship continues to glide along, past the eternal dreams in the sky.

Out of a strange, unfamiliar courtesy he gives the bed to her, but she pulls him by his hand and he ends up curled around her, his startled eyes watching her fall asleep. That strange, taut movement of his face occurs again, and he places his arms around her.  
In her slumber, something unexpected happens. He watches as her _mouth_curves into a..

_Smile._And then it hits him.

_So that's what I've been trying to do..._

Over the next few _days?_Masada learns so much. Madotsuki is quiet, but when she feels like it, her unintelligible language fills the air, musical in its own meaningless way. She uses pictures and hand signs desperately, and he tries so hard to understand.

Somehow, he can comprehend her. His own attempts at learning her tongue actually works out, a bit. Behind that smooth white skin, his beeps slowly turn into something she can recognize, although he knows it will never sound as lovely .

Besides, they rarely feel the need to vocalize. With the piano, their voices are one, and the wistful beauty of the music colors the blank room.

One day, she does something strange. After he wakes up, hair ruffled and pointing in all directions, she glances at him- and promptly begins to..._laugh?_ In the dusty storeroom of his mind he picks up another realization; this was not a _mean?_ laugh, but a _friendly, amused?_ one.  
He loves the sound of it, actually. And as he curls around her again, looking of out the crystalline pane into the sky, that odd beating in his heart starts up again, bewildered by all the new words that danced in his head.

Would he feel _sad?_if she left?

_Yes._  
He looks down at her sleeping form; those carelessly tossed chocolate braids, pink shirt and crimson skirt covering helpless limbs. Another abnormal feeling rises out of the hazy fog of his mind;

_Protective?_

_Love_. And _that_ feeling smacks him with the force of a supernova. He _loves_her, innocently, dreadfully, without much reason or cause. Unlike the others, this emotion was strong and solid. It would never budge, no matter what.

Gazing into the vibrant chasm outside, he tightens his arms around her.


	3. Chapter 3

Nothing lasts forever.  
They both know it. As each second ticks by, Masada is aware of the sighs dying like ghostly butterflies on his nonexistent lips.  
Madotsuki stares out into space, as the nebulas twist into a heavenly kaleidoscope.  
It hurts to breathe.  
It hurts to smile.  
It hurts to think.  
_It hurts to live. But to live is to dive into colors; emotions of red anger, carnation love, blue melancholy- he wants to immerse his blank mind in them, soaking up everything._

Regardless of internal conflict, however, the white ship continues its meaningless journey.

Lying on the bed, arms tied around her, he dreams. Or rather, he remembers- but the role he plays in these flashbacks is questionable.  
_I exist?  
I'm real? Or I was?___

-

"Madoka, you're not paying attention."  
"Ah! Sorry, Sakamoto- sensei."  
A gentle laugh? and then he takes her small hands in his own graceful, thin ones, placing them on cool ebony and ivory keys.  
"See, it's this." A tinkling deepens into a strong melody as fingers dance across the surface of the instrument.  
"O-oh. I see. Can I try again?" He moves aside for her, their shoulders brushing as she leans over to restart.  
"Excellent. We can move onto something else soon- perhaps a nocturne."  
"Thank you, Sensei." Her chocolate braids stare at the floor as she bows and turns to leave, but not before giving him a rare, brilliant smile.

He knew it was wrong to think like that. She was merely a child, no more than fourteen or fifteen, and in this society-

Well. Once again, it was like looking at something so terribly desirable from behind a sheet of impenetrable glass.

And what did he have to offer her? A broken-down piano, a cold, empty flat. The meager earnings of a young man, broken down and crushed by everything before he could even start.

So he dreams. He knows her life, her expressions, her cardboard-cutout parents. He knows she cries alone, everydayeverynight. He dreams of holding her close, telling her that everything was alright- but he couldn't.

Locked away behind syringes and needles, he drowns in a myriad of illusions.  
-

Staggering to his feet, Masada instantly knew something was wrong. He took a last glance at the sleeping girl before wrenching his gaze away. As he looked out the large window, his heart stopped.

They were falling.

_  
A scream rips itself out of speeding metal; twisted iron, burnt steel.  
Who knows what went wrong that day?  
Crimson, half-cooked steam rises from the warped train, toppled and bent by unseen hands. Flesh ripples in and out of the intricate, battered wreckage.  
He is dimly aware of the moans drifting in the air; their owners fading fast away. The curtains over his eyes drop as his stained lips move to utter that precious word-_

Madoka.

-  
Frozen, he stands there and beeps in panic as everything turns red, the colors outside blurring and mixing together into a white blaze.

And then she stumbles into the room.

They stare at each other. Madotsuki and Masada.  
Without a word, she pulls him close and they cling tight as the ship hurtles down into the unknown.

_I'm not real. In a sense._

Am I just a part of your dreams, Madotsuki?

Madoka?

But you can't stay with me like this, it's not right...

The landscape is rust-colored. Desolate. She stares up at him with quivering russet eyes, and he almost gives in, but-  
They are separated. Never meant to be, star-crossed lovers.

And for her sake, he needs her to let go- her happiness was all that he wanted.

So he steps away, wiping crystal trails away from her face, and shakes his head as his heart? His heart cracks silently, revealing a somber palette of feelings beneath.

She understands, and clenches her fists as she slowly walks away to the entrance.

And she doesn't look back.

He stands there, even when her footsteps finally fade away. As the white-chocolate heart-shaped shell in his chest breaks, everything spills out, and he stares at his hands.

Peach colored hands.

A warm, wet face.

That last, unspoken farewell, dyed gray-blue like the arid sky.

And the soft, heartbreakingly beautiful golden light of a confession acknowledged.

As the last note on the piano lingers in the air, Masada/Sakamoto begins to blur, crumpling. But it's alright if he disappears, because she won't ever return to such a sorrowful place again.

She has moved on.


End file.
